We didn't just vanish. Okay, we did. Reluctantly.

It all started pretty unspectacularly in Dresden: a few mates, a clubhouse, sixty people lugging around far-too-heavy CRT monitors. Sixty became a hundred and twenty, then six hundred, and at some point there was the Dresden LAN with over 1,200 attendees — a fairly absurd number for two guys who really just wanted to run their own little party series. Together with Ronny (yes, that Ronny, right at the top of the leaderboard, that's no coincidence) we eventually turned the pure event side into a proper gaming site: news, articles, reviews, plenty of esports backed by the ESL and the IFNG, and on the side a directory for LAN parties that weren't even our own. We never really had a plan for any of it, it just sort of happened.

Sometime in 2010 we ran out of steam. Sounds almost too tidy for what actually happened: jobs got in the way, families too, and in my case there was the small matter of a backpacking trip through Australia that was only meant to last a few months — and I'm still here since October 2010. Whoops. In 2011 we lost both domains, ProjectLAN.de and ploynt.de, without ever properly saying goodbye to the people who'd kept the place running for years. That still bothers me.

What you're looking at now is the attempt to make up for that, a little. We've revived the old database, really all of it: every forum thread, every LAN party, every comment, every guestbook entry. Nothing's been tidied up, dressed up, censored, or quietly deleted.

This is meant to be two things. First, an archive where everything stays as it was, embarrassments included. Second, an invitation: organisers can add old events and announce new LAN parties, anyone who used to write is welcome to again, and if you recognise yourself below, feel free to just get in touch. I don't bite.